My scientific career started already during my undergraduate studies at the Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), where I was involved in different research projects (Fajs et al., AJMR 2013 and Graduation thesis). I performed my PhD project in an industry research center, Novartis Vaccine and Diagnostics (today GSK Vaccines) in Siena, Italy. I obtained a 3-year Marie Curie ITN Fellowship (ClostNet project) and integrated in a prestigious PhD program, Novartis Academy program, headed by the world-leading expert in vaccinology Dr. Rino Rappuoli. My PhD work, supervised by Dr. Meera Unnikrishnan, was a pioneer work on biofilm formation by the anaerobic gut pathogen Clostridium difficile (Dapa et al., Journal of Bacteriology, 2013), which is highly cited and regarded in the field, having been highlighted in multiple platforms. Part of my PhD project was done at the University of Nottingham, under the supervision of Prof. Nigel P. Minton. A PhD between industry and an academic lab offered me a unique opportunity to perform research at the interface between academy and industry, which extensively contributed to my research management skills. After obtaining PhD, awarded by the University of Bologna, I changed research field and country for my first postdoc. In the lab of Dr. Ivan Matic, a world-leader in the field of stress responses, at INSERM (Paris, France), I designed and developed a research project on integration between the general stress response (RpoS response) and the DNA damage stress response (SOS response) in Escherichia coli (Dapa et al., Genetics. 2017). In a parallel project, I studied the integration between the SOS regulon and the stringent response to starvation in E. coli, which resulted in a manuscript currently in preparation (Dapa and Matic, in preparation). Furthermore, I made the initial observations that led to a ground-breaking publication (Fleurier et al., Nucleic Acids Research. 2022), which was selected by the reviewers to be featured as a 'Breakthrough' article. Additionally, I constructed genetic tools to dissect translation fidelity, which led to an additional publication (Woo et al., Science Advances. 2018). To complement my knowledge on genetics and bacterial physiology with experience on host interactions, evolutionary biology and biochemistry, I once again changed research field and country for my second postdoc, joining Dr. Karina Xavier lab at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, in Portugal. My work on the effects of dietary regimens on evolution of a key member of the gut microbiota has been recently published in the prestigious journal Cell Host & Microbe (Dapa et al., Cell Host Microbe. 2022), where it was featured as the article of the month, selected for the cover image and highlighted in a preview comment (Garud et al., Cell Host Microbe. 2022). In November 2022 I integrated in the Andalusian Center for Development Biology (CABD-UPO-CSIC) in Seville (Spain) with a María Zambrano International Talent Attraction Fellowship. In November 2023 I started as Junior PI (Beatriz Galindo Senior Distinguished Researcher Fellowship) at the same institute. I secured funds by obtaining a Spanish national project from "Proyectos de generación de conocimiento 2022, AEI" as a main and only PI, which allowed me to start a career as an independent researcher within the host institution. I was further awarded with a prestigious Ramon y Cajal contract, which I declined in favor of Beatriz Galindo Senior Fellowship. In sum, I worked in diverse research areas in the field of microbiology, in laboratories located in six different countries across Europe. I studied different subjects, from host-pathogen interaction to microbial genetics, stress responses, translation fidelity, and microbiota adaptation to nutritional perturbation. This wide-ranging experience allowed me to obtain knowledge on diverse biological systems and provided me with expertise in a many different research techniques.